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Published: January 24th 2007
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We pass botiques with fanciful names like "Extreme Wear" and "Water City", which seem ridiculous, as there is nothing extreme or wet about them. Dive Shops and Internet Cafes have papered over their windows. Freddy's Bar and Apollo Rent A Car have been deserted for months. They only activity inside of these former businesses is the annual winter overhaul and repair work crawling along. Only those businesses necessary to the locals survival are still open: Cava Mini Market and the all-inclusive Assos International Kiosk that sells everything from milk and beer to stamps and candy.
Travel in the winter means moving without tourists. It brings you closer to the local culture and the real people who keep these towns alive. You sacrifice sun, festivals, and the party atmosphere, but in return you receive grossly slashed prices and quiet beaches.
After visiting Athens, we traveled to the Greek islands of Crete and Santorini. Each have their own respective culture, and both have settled down for the winter season.
Santorini is a volcanic island which supported the entire Minoan culture...until the island erupted. The volcano exploded so violently, that the debris went 18 miles into the
atmosphere. The island shook and shuddered down to its very core, eventually sinking a majority of the island back down to its watery origins. The entire Minoan culture was wiped out in a single day, and their remains lay undisturbed beneath the sea.
The magma burst of an island is now shaped like a crescent-moon, with the smoldering caldera menacing from its center. Travel agencies tout "hikes on the volcano" and "swims in warm sulfur springs" but if you consider the probable danger there, it makes you think twice. There are often minor tremors from the ground, enough to wake the slumbering local. However, it does make for incredible sunsets.
My favorite memory from Santorini was an invitation we received from a group of local handymen, taking a break from their winter hibernation. We had just finished a lunch of spaghetti with chunks of roast beef simmering on top when we got up to leave. As we rose from the table, one of the men from the table next to us spoke up and asked where we were from. "TEXAS" was our automatic reply, never considering people might not have heard of it. They asked the
typical questions: what we were doing here (its winter if you havent noticed), and how long were we staying. Then they invited us to sit down and have a drink with them. Living on island time and having the luxury of a free afternoon, we accepted their generous offer. Over a round of Amstel light (and Coca Cola for me) we learned that they were in the company of a tiler, plumber, cabinet maker and hotel manager. They all lived off the tourism industry, and heartily agreed that they appreciated the tourists. In a place where I thought tourism had overrun the natural culture, here were men who lived for it. I cannot stress how "dead" the town was: we were literally the only tourists on the entire island. Restaurants, hotels, and boat trips were all closed from September until April. We asked what they did in the winter: "sleep" was their reply. They work 20 hours a day in the summertime, and relax in the winter.
We made small talk, the typical pleasantries you exchange with strangers: weather, general Greece knowledge, and arbitrary facts. I mentioned that we had enjoyed Greece very much and the people were
very nice. The tiler looked at me. "People everywhere are nice. Everywhere in the world, you will find good people, not just Greece." This dissention struck me as a bit forward, coming from a man I had only known for 10 minutes. "Well...I just meant, we have met a lot of friendly people here," I managed to stutter, slightly taken aback.
"You should come to realize, darling, that if you are in company with people where you are relaxed, when you are smiling, where your heart beat slows down, and your breathing is steady, that you are in the company of friends. And that can happen anywhere."
A few minutes later, we watched our bus fly down the dirt path, towards our bus stop. We hurredly tried to pay for our drinks, but they refused. "We invited you to sit down, it is on us". We thanked our generous hosts and chased the bus, jackets flying in the wind behind us.
Before I left, the tiler said to me, "remember what I have said. You will find good people everywhere".
Chalk up another life lesson for me.
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